


Requiem

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [165]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alien Abduction, Angst, F/M, Introspection, Missing Scene, Mulder's stupid brain disease thing, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 09:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10874040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf
Summary: Five different POV moments from Requiem.





	Requiem

**CSM**

There is, he supposes, a certain poetic justice to it. At the very least, a measure of dramatic irony in the fact that he is dying for real this time, and the only man who could probably save him is one whose death he arranged mere weeks ago.

Then again, it's not as though Cobra would have deigned to lift a finger to help him, not after everything. No, the end result would have been the same, regardless of whether Cobra still lived.

Still, it is inconvenient. The fix should theoretically be a simple one, only there is no one left who might be capable of pinpointing the precise nature of his chip's malfunction. In two weeks, he's gone so rapidly downhill, systems failing one after another, that if he bothered to look in a mirror, he would be hard pressed to recognize himself. If an answer cannot be divined in the very near term, he won't make it through the month.

It is the very best sort of surprise, then, when he learns of the crash in Oregon. New technology, undoubtedly more recent than what they’ve already obtained, could very well hold the answers to a cure. Or if not that, to a temporary reprieve, one that could buy him more time. He needs to get whatever’s on that ship. There is only one small problem.

The group’s more or less disbanded, his recent decline precipitating the final unraveling of the project. Despite all his ego, he never would have actually believed himself to be the glue holding the whole thing together. And yet…

So no, he does not have the resources he once commanded. But there are still a handful of players, if he’s desperate enough to call them up off the bench. And he may well be desperate enough.

“Greta--” His voice is a half-wheeze, half-croak. “I need… for you to get Marita… Covarubias on the phone for me.”

***

**Mulder**

_“There is so much more you need to do with your life. There’s so much more than this. There has to be an end, Scully.”_

It’s all too much.

He didn’t expect it to hit him this hard, coming back to Oregon where everything began for them. He certainly didn’t anticipate the bizarre combination of nostalgia and regret that’s been whirling in his chest ever since they got here. Despite everything that’s happened to them in the last seven years, all of the trauma they’ve both endured in their pursuit of the truth, so little has actually _changed_. It’s like running a marathon on a treadmill -- at the end of it, you’re still in the exact same place you started.

If they’ve been running in place this whole time, is there even a point to any of it?

Worst of all is that he’s held Scully in stasis with him. It would be one thing if he were the only one with nothing to show for all those years spent tilting at windmills, but she didn’t ask for this. She may have chosen to stay with him, but that's not the same thing.

It's impossible to ignore how much has changed for Billy Miles and Teresa Nemman (now Hoese). They've grown up. In some ways, they've grown up even more than he and Scully have. Would Scully be married, perhaps also a mother, his life hadn't derailed hers so thoroughly? 

She shivers again, and he reflexively tightens his arm around her, pressing his lips against her temple. If nothing else, this trip has certainly been a wake-up call; he’s been selfish, in a lot of ways, about a lot of things. Not just about the work, but with all of the avoidance around his health and the secrets he’s kept from her. He’s been so damned afraid of admitting the truth to her, to himself, but at what cost? If, god forbid, nothing works and this brain thing takes him out, what sort of fucked-up career and life trajectory will he have left her on? 

No, when they get back to Washington, he is going to have to come clean about everything, all of it. And if by some miracle she forgives him, they will have to make some hard decisions about where they go from here.

“Let’s not decide anything right now,” she whispers, and for one heart-stopping moment he wonders if he’s been accidentally thinking out loud. But no, she’s only responding to the last thing he said. “Maybe we’ll find something here that will… that will convince the FBI of the value of our work. Convince them to let us keep going. Maybe this doesn’t have to be an end but a new beginning.”

_Our work. She said “our work,” not “your work.”_

But it’s not just about the monetary expense or even the validity of the work. Not anymore. It’s taken him way too long to realize it, but he knows he’s right. Still, the last thing he wants to do is upset her when she’s already feeling sick.

“You should get some rest. We can talk about it tomorrow.”

***

**Skinner**

He stares after the lights, still struggling to believe what he just saw. It can’t be…

“Mulder!” he tries again, somehow knowing it is futile. 

This is bad. This is so much worse than he thought was possible. In spite of all Mulder’s worries, of Scully’s as well, he never imagined there was any real danger of losing anyone. They were supposed to come out here and find the thing, that was all. No one was supposed to disappear. Mulder wasn’t supposed to…

His brain finally catches up to the situation, and he pulls his phone from his pocket, punching the speed dial and trying to keep calm.

“Who the hell is this, and how did you get this number?”

“Frohike, it’s Walter Skinner. Agent Mulder gave me your number in case… Listen, I need your help. Something’s happened, I… I don’t know how to explain--”

“Hold on, what are you saying? Is Mulder all right?”

“He’s gone,” Skinner spits out, forcing himself to breathe through the dread and sudden nausea. “He was right here, and then… and then he wasn’t. And then I saw something, some sort of craft, materialize out of thin air before it… before it flew away.”

There is a gap of silence over the line that’s long enough for Skinner to wonder if the call’s been disconnected. He’s about to pull the phone away from his ear to check when Frohike speaks again.

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Why in the hell would I joke about this?! Mulder’s gone, and by all appearances, he’s on some sort of alien ship, and we need to track it _now_ so I can find him! I need you guys to get updated imagery so you can tell me which direction to go.”

“Well that’s going to be a little difficult at the moment.” Frohike’s voice is suddenly tight and quiet. “Scully’s had a… she’s had some sort of episode. We’re at the hospital right now.”

Skinner’s stomach drops out through his feet. _No. Not both of them at once._

“What happened, is she okay?”

“I don’t know, man. She just got woozy and passed out. She asked us to take her to the hospital, just to be on the safe side. I don’t know any more than that. She’s in with the doctor now.”

His eyes are drawn upward, to the point in the sky where he last saw the lights. ( _The craft_.) With every passing moment, Mulder is getting farther away, and even if the Gunmen could gain access to new satellite imagery, the damned ship was hard enough to find the first time around, when it was sitting still. Now that it’s a moving target… It was stupid to think he had any hope of being able to follow it. They’re going to have to regroup and come up with a different plan.

“All right. Let me know if anything changes.”

“But what about--?”

“Just make sure she’s okay.” 

***

**Frohike**

“What was that about?”

Byers and Langly pin him with matching, worried expressions as soon as he puts the phone away and turns back around. He lets out a slow breath and shakes his head.

“It’s bad, guys.” He comes closer, dropping his voice to a whisper. “That was AD Skinner on the phone.”

“Has something happened to Mulder?” Byers asks.

Frohike shushes him. “Keep your voice down, man.” They’re standing in the hallway outside the room where Scully’s being evaluated. There is _no way_ he wants her to just overhear this; she’ll need to be told gently.

He swallows. “Skinner says Mulder was taken.”

“You don’t mean…” Langly’s eyes are wide, and Frohike nods.

“Apparently they found what they were looking for. Only when they did, it took Mulder and flew away.”

“Holy shit--”

“Oh my God--”

“Shh!” Frohike’s eyes dart toward the closed door. He motions for them to follow him a bit down the hallway, still within sight of the room but out of earshot. “Look, I don’t know how in the hell we are gonna tell her, but we need to be able to say we’re doing everything we can to find him.”

“I’ll get on the phone to my contact at JPL, see if he can help get us something more to go on,” Langly offers.

“You two should both go, get back to the office,” Byers says. “Pull imagery down off every satellite you can access. If Assistant Director Skinner saw the ship fly away, there’s a good chance it won’t be invisible to satellites anymore, either.”

Frohike wants to argue. He wants to be the one to stay, to break the news to Scully, holding her hand and promising her he will move heaven and Earth to bring Mulder back. But if he truly means that, then he also knows that he _can’t_ stay; Byers is great at a lot of things, but when it comes to hacking, Frohike and Langly are the true kung fu masters. 

“You’re right,” he says, resigned but also determined. They _are_ going to find him. “I’ll call you as soon as we know anything.”

Byers nods. “Okay. I’ll do the same. Good luck.”

***

**Scully**

The world seems to tilt sideways for a moment, and she struggles to wrap her brain around what she's just been told.

“No, that's… that's not possible. There has to be some mistake. That can't be right.”

A lab error. A contamination, or a miscalibration maybe. Or someone else's sample was mislabeled. There has got to be some other explanation for these results. It’s just not _possible_ that she’s actually…

“I had them run the test three times. There’s no mistake.” Doctor Baker is smiling; she knows just as well as Scully does how impossible this should be. “We’ll do a transvaginal ultrasound to confirm, but your HcG levels suggest you’re between three and five weeks along.”

“Oh my God…” She’s been bracing herself for news of a cancer recurrence, trying to prepare for the worst. She can’t even begin to know how to process _this_.

Mulder.

She should wait until after the ultrasound, after they know for sure -- it still could just be some sort of strange hormonal anomaly -- but in this moment she is nearly overwhelmed by the sudden desire to call him.

“I know it’s a lot to process, but we’ll just take it one step at a time. Okay, Dana?” Doctor Baker makes a note in her chart and hangs it back on the end of her bed. “I’m going to let the ultrasound tech know we’re ready for her, and I’ll be back in a few minutes. All right?”

Scully nods. “Would you, um, would you mind handing me my cell phone?”

As soon as the doctor leaves, she takes a shaky breath and hits the speed-dial number for Mulder’s phone. She still has no idea what she’s going to tell him, or what he’s going to make of all this. Even as she has to blink away tears, she can’t seem to stop smiling.

“The cellular customer you are trying to reach is not available. Please hang up, and try again later.”

“Damn.” He and Skinner must be in the woods already and out of range. It won’t even let her leave a voicemail. She tries to tell herself it’s for the best, that now she’ll be able to get more information before she talks to him, but disappointment is heavy in her stomach.

There’s a soft knock on the door, and she looks up, expecting to see Doctor Baker. She blinks in surprise when it’s Byers’s face peeking into the room instead, and she quickly wipes her eyes.

“Agent Scully? The doctor said I could come in and talk to you, as long as it’s okay with you.”

She nods, not quite trusting herself to speak yet, and he comes all the way into the room, closing the door behind himself. He’s looking at her with such apprehension, undoubtedly mistaking her watery eyes for bad news, and she tries to reassure him with a smile. It really was nice of the guys to stay and wait for her, but there’s a good chance she’s going to be here for at least another day of observation and bed rest. There’s no reason they have to stay, too. Besides, by this time tomorrow, Mulder and Skinner should be back, so she’ll be able to get a ride home with Mulder.

They are going to have so much to talk about. If he and Skinner really do find something in those woods, that may change his mind about wanting to quit, to transition away from the X-Files and figure out what they want to do instead. Initially, she balked at the idea of walking away from their work, but now she doesn’t know what to think. Doctor Baker’s news has changed everything. Maybe this is finally a chance for them to live a normal life…

Realizing Byers is still just standing there looking uncomfortable, she swallows. “Everything’s fine,” she tells him, glad that her voice only sounds a little rough. “The, uh, the doctor said the cancer hasn’t come back or anything. She’s going to run some more tests to try and figure out why I kept feeling faint, but so far it looks like there’s nothing to worry about.”

He nods, stiffly, and something immediately flips in her stomach. _Why doesn’t he look relieved?_

“I’m glad to hear that,” he says. He doesn’t look glad. He looks like he would rather be anywhere else in this moment. 

“Byers? Is something wrong?”

Glancing back toward the door, he pulls a chair up beside her bed. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

Even as she shakes her head, the ECG gives away the panic that has started to take hold of her. Something is definitely wrong. Something has happened to Mulder. _Oh God, oh God, oh God…_

“We, ah, we just received a call from Assistant Director Skinner.”

She remembers in a rush the realization that lead to the fainting spell that brought her here. _Mulder thought it was me that was in danger of being taken, but he had it all wrong._

“Oh my God. They took him, didn’t they? They took Mul--” She chokes on his name, swallowing back a sob.

“Agent Scully, listen to me. We _will_ find him. Langly and Frohike are already on their way to get updated satellite imagery, so we can tell Skinner where to start looking.” He looks like he’s trying not to cry, too. “You have my word. We are going to do everything we can to help bring him home.”

_This is not happening. Please, God, no, not this. Not now. Not Mulder._

“I… um… I can’t…” She brings a hand to her mouth and squeezes her eyes shut, trying desperately to breathe slowly through her nose and keep from breaking down completely.

“I’m so sorry. I wasn’t sure if I should tell you before we knew more, but I thought…”

Another knock on the door interrupts him and signals the return of Doctor Baker. Scully opens her eyes to see Byers looking at her, his face ashen and eyes wide. Out of instinct, she reaches toward his hand, whether to reassure him or herself, she’s not sure. She squeezes, probably a little too hard, and he gives her hand a startled squeeze back.

“You did the right thing,” she chokes out. “I’m counting on you guys. Find him.”

Doctor Baker holds the door open while a young woman in scrubs pushes a cart full of ultrasound equipment into the room. “Hi, Dana, we’re back. This is Margaret. She’s going to be… Dana? Is everything all right?”

Scully hastily pulls her hand back and wipes her eyes again, forcing herself to pull it together. She barely hears the quiet gasp from beside her, and when she looks back over at Byers, it’s clear he recognizes what’s on the cart. Ultrasonography has many diagnostic purposes, of course, but by the look on his face, he is drawing the correct conclusion as to why it’s being used here. She catches his gaze and shakes her head fractionally, mentally pleading with him not to say anything. Swallowing hard, he gives the barest nod in return, then quickly stands.

“I’ll, ah, I’ll just be outside. I’ll let you know if there’s any news.”

“Thank you, Byers,” she says quietly, before turning to Doctor Baker and forcing a smile.


End file.
